Penn Center is located in the historically rich region of St. Helena, South Carolina. It was here where Quaker philanthropies Laura M. Towne and Ellen Murray established the first formal academic school in the South for freemen. They are currently commemorating 150 years of education and progression.

Penn Center offered African Americans agricultural and Industrial skills in which they could use to provide for themselves, not just labor for whites. In 1910 the Island’s population was still predominantly black with over seven thousand African Americans compared to only fifty whites. African Americans were able to own their own land as well as produce goods that would in turn, pay for their education and later establish a strong economic community.  Although the hard sciences were not fully infused in the curriculum, students were able to gain a solid foundation of useful knowledge.  The school focused on training future teachers, craftsmanship classes such as wheel-wrighting, and other practical applications such as carpentry, cobbling, and blacksmithing.

After the school became private, students had to pay tuition to attend. Some ambitious students would even work in the field to pay their way. It was now considered and elite school with an exceptional reputation.  Privatizing the school opened up a gap between land owning African Americans and less established African American families. Students who could not afford the tuition had to attend lower income schools. I think this pertains to some of the contemporary struggles that blacks and whites still experience in the education system today.

I enjoyed my visit to the Penn Center. Victoria Smalls, the director, gave an excellent, informative and personal presentation. She touched on subjects from the local colloquial dialect all the way to her own father’s involvement at the Penn Center. Smalls said once she was exposed to other areas aside from St. Helena, she became embarrassed of her Gullah accent that is so distinct to her region in South Carolina. She said once she moved to Myrtle Beach with her mother she tried to change her speech to fit in with her classmates and as a result stuttered when pronouncing words.  She eventually adapted her speech to her peers, but now as a mother back in the Islands, she has regained her pride in her heritage, and now encourages her daughter’s Gullah inflections.  I think first talking with a woman from the Islands gave so much more personality to the Penn Center Grounds. I found it remarkable that the Penn Center was one of the only multiracial meeting places in the surrounding areas at one point, a rare form of progress that Martin Luther King Jr. even took advantage of. The Penn Center has such a solid foundation of employees and volunteers native to the area.  I feel like I left knowing a sense of community that the Penn Center was originally built upon, and which still stands strong today.